


Fast Car

by raspberrycoffeecake



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, On the Run
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-03
Updated: 2016-05-03
Packaged: 2018-06-06 01:58:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6733384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raspberrycoffeecake/pseuds/raspberrycoffeecake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-The Truth.  Mulder and Scully show up in Bozeman, Montana, in a blue Corvette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fast Car

**Author's Note:**

> I was inspired by Tracy Chapman's song, 'Fast Car,' to write something about Mulder and Scully on the run.

Mr. and Mrs. Gordon arrived in Bozeman, Montana, in a bright blue convertible. Harry Gordon had known it would attract attention when he spotted it on the used car lot in Billings, but they had been driving sensible, neutral-colored sedans for so long, he couldn’t pass up the Corvette. Against his wife’s protests, he paid for the car in cash and they drove it off the lot, her long brown hair rippling in the breeze and a few light suitcases stashed in the backseat.

Now Alice Gordon’s hair was covered with a floral scarf and her sensible sundress rippled a little as they drove into town. Harry Gordon was wearing a red polo and nicely fitted khakis. They looked, for all the world, like a pair of newlyweds moving into town for an assistant professor position starting in the fall.

The only detail that would betray that image would be the fact that they pulled up, not into the parking spaces reserved for residents of university housing, but into the parking lot of a cheap motel near the edge of town. Alice Gordon carried her handbag and a small valise into their room, while Harry Gordon took their two, larger suitcases.

When the door was closed and the air conditioning set to maximum, the woman took off her scarf and sandals and threw herself back onto the bed. The man set the suitcases down, carefully removed his shoes, and lay on his side beside her. He picked up the remote and turned on the TV, barely seeming to notice what channel it landed on.

The woman stirred beside him. The man touched a strand of her brown hair, and she jerked away from him. He sighed and turned onto his back, his hands clasped behind his head.

“At least it’s a university town this time, Scully,” he said, as if he hoped his cheery tone would arouse similar emotions in her. “The people-watching will be better.”

She grunted. “Yeah, that would be great if I weren’t spending all my time at the grocery store checkout stand.”

A long pause. Mulder knew better than to respond when Scully used that tone - a storm was brewing. After a few minutes of silence, Scully suddenly shot up from the bed and yelled at him, “Why the *fuck* did you have to go and buy that *fucking* car? So much for laying low.”

Mulder didn’t move. “I just… it’s been two years, Scully. Two years of blue-collar jobs and seedy motel rooms. I just wanted some release. Some escape from this dead-end life we’re living right now.”

“You think I don’t want release? You think I *like* being on the run with you? Spooking every time we pass a patrol car? Wondering if every guy in a suit and sunglasses is FBI and recognizes our faces from the wanted list in the field office break room? Goddamn it, Mulder, I don’t want this any more than you do, but our other option involves a pretty nasty cocktail for you and a long prison sentence for me. Did you forget that?”

Neither of them had a response. She finally stalked over to the window, running her hands through the hair that had become coarse from countless dye jobs over the last two years. Then she put her hands on the window sill, her entire body showing both tension and fatigue.

Mulder stood and took out her valise. He took out a light cardigan, walked over to Scully, and pulled it over her shoulders. It was almost dinnertime, but the northern summer sun had barely begun to show signs of setting.

“Let’s go for a drive. I want to see the country. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

***

Mulder had driven the convertible carefully up the switchbacks leading to the top of one of the mountains overlooking the town. At each turn, Scully had gazed out and watched Bozeman recede into the dusk as streetlights and house lights slowly winked on. He stopped the car in a bare, open space at the top of the hill and cut the engine. They sat in silence for several minutes, neither of them taking their eyes off the view.

Finally, Mulder tentatively put his arm around the seat behind Scully. As he slid it around her shoulders, she looked over and smiled at him, and leaned into him over the gear shift. He kissed the top of her head softly.

“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have gotten the car.”

A pause. Then, almost inaudibly, Scully laughed. “You know, when we were doing eighty on the way from Billings, with the top down and the radio on - that’s the most alive I’ve felt in months.”

And she sighed. They both knew there was nothing to say to that. So they stared out at the small college town they had somehow found themselves in, two tumbleweeds blown across the country, chased by real pursuers or just by the demons inside their own heads.

After the sun had set, leaving the town dark beneath them, Scully pulled away from Mulder’s arms and looked up at him. “I guess tomorrow I’ll go over to Safeway and see if they have any job openings.”

He smiled and ruffled her hair. “You’ve got to be the best checkout girl the West has ever seen, Mrs. Gordon.”

She smiled back and punched him lightly in the arm.

***

He slammed her back against the door, cupping her face with his hands as they kissed desperately. One of his hands sank to her breast and his lips went to her neck as her hands grabbed at the back of his neck. As they drowned in each other, they washed away the grime of the road and the facades of Alice and Harry Gordon, becoming their old selves again. 

She moaned as his mouth moved lower and suckled at one of her nipples through her dress and her thin lace bra. For a moment, she gave in to the feeling of his lips around her - but then, the memory of an infant suckling at that same breast made her shiver and push his mouth away.

He tilted her face upward and looked into her eyes, and he knew immediately without her having to say it. So he pulled her to his chest and held her, stroking her dark hair.

After a moment, she pushed him away and shoved him down onto the bed, unzipping his khakis and pulling down his boxer shorts as she climbed on top of him. He touched her for a second, longingly, before he pulled down her cotton panties and pushed her dress above her waist. When she mounted him, he could feel the desperation and frustration coursing through her body. 

He wanted to give her what she needed, but what she needed most wasn’t his to give. She moved her hand down to rub herself - fuck, he couldn’t even give her that. So instead, he thrust as hard as he could, responding to her body’s signals until he finally gave into his orgasm, hoping that at least she had made herself come, too.

She rolled away from him and he wrapped his arms around her. This couldn’t go on. It would kill both of them. She loved him too much to do anything to stop this self-destructive cycle. So he would have to end this himself.

***

When Mulder had dropped Scully off at her job interview that morning, she assured him that Bozeman was so small, she could walk back instead of calling him for a ride. She walked in and put her bravest face on while he drove off to look for short-term work on a construction site or whatever he could find.

Mrs. Alice Gordon’s resume was fake, just like all the others Scully had used over the last two years, but it never seemed to give prospective employers pause. The first few times, she had been a little proud to be hired immediately, but the thrill wore off when she realized that most of these places were usually just happy to have someone competent on hand.

The blue Corvette wasn’t in the parking lot when Scully arrived back at the motel. She scoffed, imagining Mulder showing up at a construction site in such a ridiculous car. Maybe he had at least thought to park around the block.

But she knew something was wrong when she opened the door and Mulder’s suitcase was gone. 

On top of her suitcase was a note with an address in Virginia. Below it, in Mulder’s messy scrawl: “Love you, Starbuck.” Nothing else. 

She waited until the next morning, half-expecting that any moment he would come through the door and disturb her half-slumber.

But he never came, and the next morning, she took a cab to the airport and bought a one-way ticket for Richmond.

“Name?” asked the airline clerk.

“Dana Scully.”

***

It had been almost three months, and she had never seen the car before, but she knew it was him from the self-assured way he drove the battered old Jeep up the dirt driveway to the house. She stood watching him from the top step of the porch in bare feet, cut-off jeans, and one of his old t-shirts she had taken out of storage when she was furnishing the house.

He finally stopped his Jeep beside her new Volvo sedan and pulled out his two suitcases out of the back of the car. He looked at her for a moment, as if asking for permission, and she raised her eyebrow at him in response. That was all he needed, and he carried his bags awkwardly up the stairs to meet her.

When he reached the top step, he put down the suitcases and gathered her up in his arms, kissing her deeply before setting her back on the wooden floor. Then he ran a hand through her short hair, which was now soft and red again.

She smiled up at him, a little shyly. “I shaved all of it off when I got here. I couldn’t stand to have a single strand of that nasty dyed stuff on my head anymore. It’s just started to grow back.”

“It’s beautiful,” he said, kissing the top of her head. Then he looked back at the yard, his arm still around her shoulder. “This place looks even better than it did in the pictures.”

“I’ve had some time to decorate. Although if you don’t like how I’ve set things up…” she frowned. She saw the look on his face and grabbed his hand as his smile fell.

“It’s OK, Mulder,” she said, her hand gently tugging at his chin so his eyes stayed focused on hers. “I’ve missed you like hell, but this was what I needed. I’ve started my residency at a hospital in Richmond so I can become a surgeon. I’ve been making this house you picked out into a home. I can see my mother on the weekends. And, most importantly, you’re here now.”

“Can you forgive me for leaving you again?” She could hear his voice break on the last word.

“I already have.” She kissed him gently, then took his other hand in hers. “Come on, let me show you around.”

And he smiled as she led him into the house and into their new life together.


End file.
